Limits Of Our Love
by Kian
Summary: Fifteen years before the start of the series, Gregory Lestrade meets Sherlock Holmes. Or does he?


**Pairings/Characters:** Mycroft/Lestrade, Sherlock, Mummy, Gregson, miscellaneous Sherlock folks

**Warnings:** AU, arranged marriages, mistaken identities, mentioned drug abuse, Mystrade angst

**Disclaimer:** Sherlock Holmes and all his friends, arch-enemies, and relations belong to me only in the sense that I own a copy of his books. Any and all scribbles I make about him et al are only profitable in the sense that it makes me happy, much as playing with stuffed animals made me happy when I was six.

**Summary:** Fifteen years before the start of the series, Gregory Lestrade meets Sherlock Holmes. Or does he?

**AN:** So, this happened in the midst of writing NaNo and a S/J AU fic. Title of the fic is taken from the song "Limits of Our Love," by Charlotte Martin. Comes before my other Mystrade fic, "Nothing Into Something." You'll probably want to read that first, even though this comes first chronologically. This is not beta-ed or Brit-picked, so all mistakes are my own. I'm sure they are plentiful, so give me a shout if you find one.

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><p>For three months, Greg Lestrade had been crazily, stupidly, perfectly happy.<p>

He hadn't expected to be, not in this way, but he sure as hell wasn't about to complain. He was in love with a man who loved him back and while he'd had his doubts at the outset, he wouldn't change a single thing for the world.

Greg had signed up with the agency on a whim when they had come recruiting at the academy, knowing that he didn't have any time to date normally for the next few years between academy training and the third shift rotations they'd have him on as a rookie cop. Sure, the practice of matchmaking was a little outmoded, but the thought of either being alone for a few years or stumbling through the fledgling stage of half a dozen relationships just to find out the other person wasn't a good fit for him sounded bleak and depressing. So he'd set up an account, shown up for his glamour portrait session, and waited for the agency to send a couple of good prospects his way. In the meantime, he'd been busy with his courses and PT.

He'd gotten three nibbles through the agency. The first was a lovely girl from the south named Lucy who had long blond hair and pretty hazel eyes. They'd seen each other twice and while they'd had a good time, there hadn't been much of a spark, not to mention that she'd been intimidated at the prospect of being married to a police officer.

The second prospect was a man five or six years his senior, Kevin, a city boy who was still quite fit as he was a marathoner in his free time. They'd only had the one official date. Greg knew that while the man's obsession with what he put in – and what came out of – his body was amusing in passing (Kevin had referred to all food as "fuel" and had waxed poetic on the merits of a vegetarian lifestyle for a solid thirty minutes), it would drive him up the bloody wall in day-to-day life since Greg had no time for or interest in such a highly-regulated diet himself.

Then came the folder on Sherlock Holmes. His match-maker had assured him that they were around the same age and similarly interested in law enforcement. Sherlock hadn't yet had a portrait session, but his match-maker described him as tall, dark-haired, and that Sherlock filled out a suit nicely. Greg was advised that the Holmes family was a little higher up the social ladder than what Greg was used to, but that the family has no issue with Greg's middle class background if he were a good fit for Sherlock.

When he'd agreed to the meet, they sent him Sherlock's file, that unassuming packet of information that, while still somewhat sparse since Sherlock had only recently joined the agency, would give Greg a jumping off point instead of having to poke and prod around blindly for the basic information in that clumsy way that – according to the agency – doomed so many first dates to failure.

Greg inhaled it.

The IQ score alone, sitting tucked in amongst all the other little numbers in summary at the top of the "Education" page, was almost unbelievably high. The schooling was way out of his league, but understandable since clearly this Sherlock was an actual, proper genius.

There was something almost comforting about that, that Sherlock hadn't been shuffled off to the top schools in England simply because his family could afford it. It strangely calmed the worries Greg had been harboring over whether Sherlock would be put off at the thought of matching with someone who'd worked a night job while in school to pay for his footy kit and barely remembered anything about the higher maths courses he'd once taken. Somebody who went to posh schools for the education probably wouldn't have as many hang ups about Greg's schooling as someone who went to Eton simply because that's where people like Sherlock's parents sent their children.

The personality pages described Sherlock as somewhat reticent, a little brusque in his manners, but also in possession of a genuine sense of loyalty and affection to those who weren't threatened by his clever mind or interests. Greg could see that. After all, the author of the written portions of the file described what sounded like a truly startling intellect – probably hadn't won the poor bloke many friends.

There were pages on the type of person Sherlock was looking for, littered with words like patient, self-sufficient, career-motivated, loyal, and as many broad hints about overall intelligence as could reasonably be fit in every three or four sentences. There was not a single mention of physical preference.

There was the general psychiatric and physical evaluation as well as lists of hobbies and interests. The latter lists were as short as the former were long. Greg scanned the interests for anything out of the normal way, skimming past "reading" and "classical music" to peer curiously at "martial arts," "men's fashion," and "criminology."

The health documentation presented a young man in good health, detailed a few genetic dispositions, and offered Greg a little more to go on for a mental picture of the man.

The psychiatric evaluation mentioned trust issues and some narcissistic and borderline tendencies, but Greg took that with a grain of salt considering that massive brain Sherlock seemed to be carrying around. He could hardly expect a bloke as sharp as all that would appreciate playing mind games with a shrink. Greg had nearly walked on the agency himself when he'd discovered that particular element of the process, but his assigned match-maker had reassured him it was all due-diligence and not meant to be too invasive of a session.

It'd all been enough to being going on. Enough to meet Sherlock Holmes and see if he was as interesting in real life as he seemed on paper.

Two weeks later, on the last Friday of May, Greg sat himself at the tidy little bar near the hostess station at an Italian restaurant specializing in Tuscan cuisine and fought down his nerves while he waited for Holmes to turn up for their arranged date. He was nursing a glass of the house wine when a tall, imperious looking young man in a smart three-piece suit strode into the restaurant.

Greg had been playing a game with himself for the last half hour – he had overestimated how long it would take to freshen up and get to the restaurant and thus had arrived nearly three-quarters of an hour ahead of the arranged time – inspecting every man who came in on his own, trying to figure out before they spoke to the hostess if they were his date for the evening. Now, Greg had no doubts. He downed the dregs of his wine glass and set it aside on the stone bar top, pacing quickly over to the front alcove, just in time to hear the man inquire about the Holmes reservation in a rich, measured voice. Greg's stomach had given a funny little twist at the sound of it.

He'd been grinning like an idiot when he'd introduced himself, holding out a hand to shake the taller man's hand. _God_, he'd thought. _What fantastic eyes._

Sherlock Holmes was not a particularly beautiful man, with a sharp nose and a certain softness around his jaw that implied a little bit of a struggle with weight. But he was striking, delicate in his manners but possessed of something of a steely core that shown through in the way he held himself. He was older than Greg had expected, but maybe he'd remembered the year of birth wrong from the file. Sherlock was probably only a few years either way of Greg's own 25 years, and that settled any hesitation Greg had harbored over an age or experience gap.

Greg was entranced, and only became more so as the evening went on. Sherlock was as bright and intelligent as had been implied, and while he did seem to stumble occasionally over social convention, he was an engaging conversationalist and not at all snobbish about the things Greg might have expected if he'd simply seen the man walking down the street.

When they'd polished off a dessert and two rounds of coffee, they had finally agreed that maybe the night was was winding down. Greg had been nervous when there was some hesitation over the exchange of phone numbers, but it was only momentary. Their second date was two nights later. By their third, they had both taken themselves off the available lists at the agency.

Three months of perfect, blissful happiness. Sherlock had asked that they keep the agency and their families out of it for the most part, or at least the Holmes family.

"Mummy is an incorrigible busybody," Sherlock said one Saturday evening two weeks after their first date, when they were sitting pressed together from shoulder to knee on a bench in a park halfway between the theater and the bistro where they'd had dinner before the show, hands tangled to rest in the dip between their thighs. "I want to wait a bit – have you to myself before the rest of the Holmes start planning Christmas dinners."

Sherlock had placed no embargo on Greg talking to his younger sister about his love life, but Greg still held back on much of the detail, feeling the same kind of selfishness as had made Sherlock blush on that bench in the hazy dusk of a June evening, that desire to keep this shiny new thing to himself for just a while.

Their interests weren't always a perfect match, but they seemed equally willing to compromise and even enjoy new things together. Sherlock's file wasn't always trustworthy, but Greg figured there was only so much of such a dynamic personality that you could catch on paper. Sherlock seemed to know a little bit about everything, and once Greg had made it known that he didn't mind Sherlock's little lectures, he had been able to spend fifteen minutes at a time just listening to the other man talk, stretching that magnificent mind on whatever subject had caught his interest this time.

On their seventh date, three full weeks after their initial meeting, Greg took Sherlock home. It wasn't without the usual awkwardness of a first time together, but it was perfect. The eighth date was to get a new set of keys made. Sherlock never spent a weekend away from Greg's dingy little flat again.

In their eleventh week, Greg bought an antique silver pocket watch. During the twelfth week, he'd gotten it engraved. In week thirteen, he'd chickened out twice, but he didn't mind. It was just a matter of time and he was waiting for the right moment.

Week fourteen came and went. Greg ordered take away from the Italian place where they had met only three months earlier. He made sure to get a double order of the panforte that Sherlock had so loved that first night. They had laid out the table (Greg only had three place settings of mismatched cutlery and china, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind, so long as he could use the dainty teacup and saucer he'd brought from his own flat), spooned out the portions and opened a bottle of Chianti when Sherlock's brick cell phone rang out a plaintive electronic wail from his briefcase.

Sherlock had excused himself with an apologetic smile and a chaste kiss to the corner of Greg's mouth, promising to only be a moment. Greg finished preparing their places and sat in the ancient folding chair that had come with the card table that served as his dining area, sipping idly at his wine (Sherlock had slipped a pair of wine glasses into Greg's drying rack one day when he wasn't looking) and listening to his lover's murmuring voice drifting out from the bedroom, where Sherlock usually retreated when he needed privacy on the phone. He never shut the door though, and Greg liked that. Sherlock was almost inherently distrustful, but he trusted Greg.

The talking stopped, and Sherlock reappeared, looking annoyed and anxious.

"Work?" Greg asked, standing and moving to where Sherlock was hovering near the corner of the futon Greg had picked up from a mate who hadn't wanted to move it home after dropping out of the academy.

"Greg," Sherlock started, a look of pained chagrin crossing his features. "That was my mother. There has been something of a family crisis and she needs me to come to the house."

Greg reached for his elbow, stroking across the silky cotton of his shirt with his thumb. "Is everything all right? Can I help?"

"Thank you. It is not an emergency, but I must go." Sherlock glanced into the kitchen at the meal laid out for them. "I'm sorry. I would much prefer to stay here with you. I was very much looking forward to this evening."

Greg cups Sherlock's jaw and they kiss softly. "It's okay. I'll put it in the fridge and cork up the wine; it'll keep. You go save the day and come home when you're done, yeah?"

Sherlock smiled, brushing a hand through Greg's brown hair. Sherlock seemed to have bit of a fixation on Greg's hair, not that he minded.

"I will do my best."

So Greg had let him go, dropping the pocket watch into his sock drawer a little ruefully when he'd changed to get ready for bed. Sherlock had called and let him know that he'd likely not be back for a few days. _Oh well_, Greg had thought. _I have time_.

On day four, Greg looked up the Holmes address. It was a bit of a gambit, showing up unannounced, but if Greg was going to be proposing, it was probably time to meet the in-laws anyway.

A middle-aged woman answered the door, but when Greg inquired "Mrs. Holmes?," he'd been led into a sitting room and asked to wait. He'd goggled a little bit, surrounded as he was by built-in shelving stuffed with leather bound books and trinkets he wasn't brave enough to touch.

In one corner, a grand piano held court, its lid standing propped open. Greg wandered towards it, too nervous to sit and inspected its flawless ivory keys and well-dusted sound board. He plunked out a note or two and the hammers struck out clear, pleasing tones, perfectly in tune. Greg imagined Sherlock sitting here, feet dangling from the piano seat, as he learned his scales and arpeggios. Greg still hadn't heard Sherlock play for him. Maybe he could convince him to play a song here, when they next got a chance.

The door to the sitting room swung open and a regal looking woman swept in. She looked at him with come curiosity and confusion, and though she was fully a foot shorter than her son, she strode forward in a gait he knew all too well. Offering her hand, she said, "I am Geneve Holmes. How may I help you?"

Greg removed his hand from his pocket, where he had been running his finger across the pocket watch, and took her hand to shake gently.

"My name is Gregory Lestrade, Mrs. Holmes, and it is so good to finally meet you."

"Mycroft Holmes" read the plain white label affixed to the tab at the top corner of the legal sized file folder. The file was two inches thick, sectioned into four paper-clipped sections, and weighed heavily in the unsteady grip of his fingers. A glossy photo from the top-most section slipped free of the rest, its heavy paper pulled more firmly by the gravity that sent the photo crashing to the floor, image side down.

Greg bent, resting a knee on the blue carpeting of the archive room at the agency as he used a fingernail to pluck up the corner of the photo, tucking the rest of the file in the crook of his other arm.

And there was his lover of three months, sitting primly in a gray three piece suit, a soft violet tie done in a neat Windsor knot at the base of his throat. His long, graceful hands were resting in his lap and he was wearing that little smile that had taken Greg weeks to learn meant Sher– _Mycroft_ was nervous. It broke his heart to see it.

Greg found himself suddenly fully seated on the floor amongst the steely gray forest of filing cabinets, the file spread out in his lap and the paper sifting through his hands like the delicate pages of an ancient and unique tome. He devoured their contents.

So much of it he already knew, either from Sherlock's file or from their many, many conversations.

Mycroft possessed a rare – and sometimes polarizing – intellect. Mycroft had gone to the best schools, had excelled in his course work. Mycroft wanted to serve his country, wanted to put his excellent mind to work in a political career that didn't draw much public attention. Mycroft wanted a life partner, someone he could trust implicitly. Mycroft loved to read, enjoyed good food, and preferred the theater to the cinema.

There were also things Greg didn't know. Mycroft spoke five languages fluently and actively studied three others. Mycroft played two instruments more than he'd mentioned in conversation. Mycroft had been in a tennis club at school until a moment of poor footing during a match when he was thirteen had broken his ankle.

And then there were things Greg knew that the file did not. Mycroft hated orange juice, but drank it anyway for the health benefits. Mycroft had a secret fondness for Miss Piggy. Mycroft adored cats, but was allergic; he would stop and pet friendly ones anyway and would simply wipe at his nose with a handkerchief afterward with an apologetic smile at the way the dander made his eyes a little red-rimmed and his speech a little nasally. Mycroft carried a collapsible umbrella in his briefcase at all times because he had once been caught outside without as a child and had developed pneumonia from the ensuant cold. Mycroft could divine your whole day from the state of your clothing, could piece together a life story from minute ticks and hygiene habits. Mycroft was sensitive to the smallest touches, found even the most innocent of affectionate brushes simultaneously arresting and stimulating. Mycroft wanted to be kissing when he came.

Four years' worth of information on Mycroft lay before Greg. Mycroft's yearly physicals and evaluations, his yearly glamour shot, the paperwork for every year he'd been in the system. But when Greg came to the page that was meant to detail Mycroft's potential matches and what came of any dates, the page was blank. Just...empty. In four years, Mycroft had never had a single suggested match, never been on a single date. There was no reason given for why not; the match-maker assigned to Mycroft's case had even been changed once, just shy of three years in.

And finally it began to make sense, Mycroft's deception. Greg hadn't been able to figure it out, why a man as good and brilliant as Mycroft would pretend to be someone else, would lead Greg on the way he had. But all Greg had to do was think about the wonder in his lover's eyes when they were together, when they kissed and touched, the way Mycroft had worked so hard to make him happy, the surprise when Greg paid him spontaneous compliments, when Greg had mused aloud on his own good luck.

That was what that nervous smile was about in the glamour shot for this last year's paperwork. Mycroft's self-confidence, any sense he'd had of being found an attractive mate, had been shattered by four years of seeming rejection.

_In four years, you couldn't have found him one measly date? _Greg thought rather viciously. He thought of his own time in the system, his own selection for a match with Mycroft's brother almost at the drop of a hat._ Why didn't I get selected for Mycroft? The only conflict between his file and Sherlock's is a desire to find someone not in anything like politics. _

Was that all it had taken? Greg's desire to work at the Yard had slipped him off a list of possibles for the man he was in love with?

Mrs. Holmes had told him that Mycroft had been sent to apologize to Greg that night at the restaurant, to make excuses and possibly treat Greg to dinner on their dime for the inconvenience. How that must have stung, to go meet with someone who _fit_ your sibling? Mycroft would have needed to know, that unflinching intellect would have itched madly at the thought that if a peculiar brother could find a mate, was it so unreasonable to still hope for himself?

And Greg could remember lurching forward, hand outstretched, when he heard the tall, suave man ask the hostess about the table in the name of "Holmes." Greg had been excited, intrigued by the file and taken with the appearance of the man. Nearly just his type. Greg had called him "Sherlock" and Mycroft had paused, just for a moment – natural he'd thought for someone hearing their given name on the tongue of a stranger – and then he had taken Greg's hand and said, "Yes." Mycroft had only told two lies so far as Greg could tell, given the files spread over his lap. He had called himself "Sherlock" and he had pretended to be the younger sibling, with a brother away in London starting out in an unspecified career.

Mycroft hadn't liked being called "Sherlock." He'd insisted he was more familiar going by "Holmes" like he had in school. That was when Greg had begun calling him all the nicknames, all the pet names. Mycroft had been "Sherlock" in his head or on the phone, but not when they were together. Together, it was "love," or "my own," or occasionally "brolly boy" when Mycroft was being persnickety.

Come to think of it, he'd always gotten such a beautiful smile for "my own."

Mrs. Holmes had been scandalized by her son's behavior, had apologized profusely around her outrage. She promised she'd make any reparations Greg thought necessary. She'd called the agency while he had sunk further into the high-backed wing chair he had collapsed into at some point during the conversation. He had heard her voice as though far in the distance when she demanded an explanation for the oversight from the agency, that they hadn't thought to check in with their clients, hadn't put two and two together when the two of them had taken their names off the available list when Sherlock's account had been put on hold.

Greg had pulled the watch from his pocket as the world seemed to implode around him, Mrs. Holmes calling the woman who had met him at the door – Thompson, Mrs. Holmes called her – with a demand to produce Mycroft. Opening the antique time piece that he had been dutifully winding every night for weeks, Greg gazed at the engraving within.

_GL & SH_

_26 May 1995_

God, what a lie. Wasn't it? It felt like one, but at the same time it hadn't. The man he loved was real, their relationship was _real_, Greg was sure of it. But why not come clean? Why go on in this fallacy for so long when a quick word at the restaurant would have solved everything and let them go on just this way without any world-ending hysterics. _Why_?

Sitting on the floor in the file room of the agency, paging through Mycroft's life on paper, through the file that they'd given Greg since they were blacklisting Mycroft and throwing him out anyway, he had to wonder. Greg had come by to close his own account and asked about it on a momentary whim. His match-maker, Julie, had eyed him with sympathy before leaving him alone with the file, telling him to come back by her desk when he was finished so she could walk him out.

Mycroft hadn't appeared two days ago when his mother had sent for him in a rage. No one could find him. Greg had finally gotten home late that evening, exhausted and worn completely out from dealing with Mrs. Holmes, the agency representative who had shown up to handle the situation, and the mania that had arisen when it became clear that Mycroft had fled the house at some point during his mother's initial tirade. She had left him sitting with his younger brother, the real Sherlock Holmes, who was "ill" and confined to his room. Greg was hoping he was in the flat, ready to explain in the privacy of their home, or maybe just apologize and then huddle up together. Greg was too strung out, too shattered, and all he wanted was his lover to hold him for a while, to reassure him that they were the good, perfect thing Greg had believed they were that morning.

Instead, there was one final shock for Greg's system. A note on the card table in his kitchen, folded once in half with his name on it and a key laying on top. He checked the bathroom, the bedroom, the sitting room before he dared approach the note. All of Sher– _Mycroft's_ things were gone. Anything he'd bought for Greg, for their flat, was still there, but none of his clothes or toiletries. The book he was reading was gone from the nightstand, as well as a few others that Greg had never been interested in that had been littered about the flat just that morning. The only oversight was his cup and saucer, still standing in the sink from where Mycroft had left them to rinse out five mornings ago.

Greg drank the whole leftover bottle of Chianti that night. When he accidentally chipped the base of one of the wine glasses setting it down a little too hard, he began to cry. He didn't stop until he finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next day, in between phone calls to the agency, the Holmes house, and Mycroft's office, Greg carefully glued the chipped piece of glass back into place. He sliced one finger open in the process, but he hardly felt it. He only put a plaster on the finger when blood began to smear over the glass.

It was Mycroft's coworker that finally gave him a lead on where Mycroft had gone. Three days ago, an offer had come in for Mycroft to transfer to a central London office, where he would be under the wing of a powerful government official who could set him up on a more direct path to the kind of position Mycroft had been angling to acquire. Mycroft had initially said he needed time to think it over, to discuss the opportunity with his family, but yesterday afternoon he had blown into the office and placed the call, accepting the position and offering to start immediately. He'd boxed up his desk in thirty minutes, shook hands with his boss and co-workers, and strode back out the door.

Greg had pried the address to Mycroft's weekday flat out of the gossipy young woman and immediately set out. He'd been greeted at the door by a group of professional movers. They had been paid a king's ransom to box the whole place up and move it to a storage unit across town. The crew chief had let Greg wander through for a few minutes, look at the furniture and poke his head into the half-packed boxes.

A few boxes in the bedroom were labeled "For Client Pickup At Office." Most were clothes, but sitting on top of some toiletries, towels and books was a framed photo of Mycroft and Greg from the night of their seventh date, taken by a waiter before Greg had their baklava boxed up and took Mycroft home for the first time. It wasn't the most romantic photo – Mycroft had been unsure how to pose for a couple's picture – but it was them. Mycroft smiling at Greg, Greg laughing at the helpless look on his face. There had been a "proper" picture too, but this was the one that looked like them. Greg hadn't known Mycroft had gotten a double made.

It took him a few moments to recover, but when he did Greg hunted down a slip of paper (the back of a discarded envelope in one of the bins) and a pen and went back to the open box. He sat on the bed and wrote:

_I want to see you. Call me. -Greg_

Before he thought better of it, he pulled the pocket watch from his pocket and slipped it into the envelope. He wished he could seal it, but the envelope had been cut open with a letter opener, so at least it was still mostly in tact. He put the envelope on top of the framed photo, turned his back on the box and stumbled back home again in a cloud.

It had now been eight days since he'd seen Mycroft. Over a week. They hadn't been apart for so long since they'd met. He slotted all the paper back into the file, put the photo of Mycroft on top, stroking a finger across its surface before closing the folder and tucking the whole thing under his arm. He barely heard what apologies and reassurances Julie had for him as she walked him out. While on his way home, he accidentally dropped the business card she'd pressed into his hand went they'd parted ways at the door.

That night, he made himself a cuppa in Mycroft's cup and saucer, the elegant bone china feeling foreign in his large, squared hands. He watched telly sipping his tepid brew aimlessly and when he stood up to head to bed, he found himself hovering over the phone instead.

He called before he could think better of it. The answering service cheerfully asked him to leave a message after a harrowing five rings.

"Mycroft. I –," Greg started, but he had to stop to swallow around the fist that was tightening around his throat. "I don't care. Please, just call me? We can work this out. I want to work this out. We're still us, no matter how crazy everybody else is going over this. Just, don't leave without talking to me. If you can't do this, tell me to my face. I – I'm holding your tea set hostage until you talk to me. Mycroft – please, please just call me. I love you. Call me back. I'll be waiting."

Sergeant Lestrade of the Yard was an eminently likable sort of bloke. He was a funny and jovial man who tried his best to help everyone he came across. He had the patience of a saint, a quick wit, and a keen appreciation for detail that made him popular with the guys in forensics.

He had his quirks like everyone else, the most notable one being that he hardly ever dated and never seriously, much to the disappointment of many a woman (and man) at the Yard, not to mention at his favorite coffee shop and bookstore. None of his dates ever went home with him, though a few of his friends had been over to watch a game every once and again. Gregson liked to tease him about his lack of proper wine glasses, despite an apparent fondness for Chianti whenever they went out for pub night. One of the two he had had a poorly repaired base, with smatterings of a brownish stain mixed in with the dried glue.

He also read the strangest mix of books; he was just as likely to be found flipping pages of a escapist thriller novel as he was some dry tome on modern political theory. He said he liked to keep current on the goings-on in government, made him feel connected.

He was singularly motivated, though not terribly ambitious. His relentless dedication to cases was turning his hair prematurely gray. Most of his admirers agreed it made him look refined, but on one pub night, Lestrade had complained about it, bemoaning the loss of his dark brown hair. Gregson had punched him in the shoulder and told him to quit his whinging. At least he _had_ all his hair. Gregson was sure that if he ran into this strung out tosser who had been hanging around his crime scenes one more time, he'd be pulling out what remained of his own. Lestrade told Gregson to send the guy his way; he'd hate to see Gregson's pretty little wife leave him so soon into their marriage over a few bald spots. She needed to at least get to the really annoying stuff before giving him the boot.

It was eight days later that Gregson was trying to corral a tall, dark-haired man who was obviously high as a kite down to one of the holding cells when Lestrade looked up from his cup of tea – a delicate bone china cup and saucer that never failed to draw looks in the break room – and stood abruptly. He strode after Gregson, following the adamant cries of "The letter! Did you even _look_ at it! It _can't_ be the teacher!"

"Holmes!" Gregson was saying as Lestrade rounded the corner at a quickening pace. "Shut up! You're already in enough trouble without getting written up for disturbing a crime scene!"

Lestrade rounded the corner, breath coming a little harder than it needed to for his short journey. He brought a hand down on Gregson's shoulder, but his attention was all on the posh young man in the officer's grip.

"Sherlock Holmes?" he said, trying to keep the tremulous note out of his voice.

Gray-green eyes locked on him momentarily, though they slipped away before refocusing several times afterward. _God, he's wasted._

"Yes?" came the imperious baritone.

"You say you noticed something off about the ransom note?"

"Yes! If you lot had even the barest hint of intelli–"

"Alright, gimme," Lestrade cut him off, pulling a post-it note from a nearby desk and a pen from his pocket.

Gregson stood incredulously by as Sherlock blurted out a string of observations that not only disproved the involvement of Alice Whitemore's teacher in her kidnapping, but firmly pointed the arrow of suspicion at Alice's neighbor, who had been interviewed almost immediately after the note was discovered. As Gregson darted off to report to the superiors and get a warrant for the search of the man's home, Lestrade took Sherlock to his desk and sat him there while he refreshed his cuppa to get some liquids into the man.

Sherlock eyed the teacup that was pressed into his hand. "Didn't take you for a Wedgwood type of man, Inspector."

"Sergeant, actually."

"Give it a few months," Sherlock said around the lip of the tea cup.

"Right. Who am I calling?" Lestrade asked, picking up the phone, one finger hovering over the numbers.

A distasteful look crossed the young man's face. "No one. Incarcerate me. Anything's better than _Mycroft_."

Lestrade's stomach clenched hard.

"Who's Mycroft?" he asked softly.

Sherlock snorted into the tea, then had to cough and sputter for a few moments – in which Lestrade had to move quickly to save his cup from being dropped in the jostling – to clear his air ducts of the tea that had trickled down the wrong pipe.

"_Mycroft_," sneered the young man, "is the most dangerous man you've never met. He'll undoubtedly come to post bail, but I'd rather spend the night in a cell."

"But you have his number?" Lestrade asked, trying hard not to sound too interested. Sherlock seemed the type to clam up if he thought you wanted something too keenly.

Sherlock waved a hand at his pants pocket and, with a glance at Sherlock for permission, Lestrade dug out a practically new (and horribly expensive) cell phone.

"He'll be under 'Big Brother'," Sherlock says, waving a hand as his head lolls onto the back rest of the chair, slouching down and crossing his arms over his chest.

Lestrade scrolls through the address book, littered with strange nicknames and coded entries, until the words "Big Brother" were highlighted. His thumb hovered over the call button as he took a shaky breath. He pressed down.

_Ring, ring._

**End**


End file.
